Smart Grid

Iceland's EV charging network is expanding by 200 units. A subsidiary of Northern Lights Energy called EVEN is providing and installing the rapid chargers, which it hopes to have installed by the end of the year. EVEN's Gísli Gíslasson says, "We couldn't wait for the government and decided to do our part in this." Iceland's government hopes to have 10 percent of the cars on its road powered by sustainable fuels by 2020. Read more at Iceland Review.

General Motors just might have figured out a good way to go head-to-head with its luxury electric vehicle competitors, the Tesla Model S and BMW i3 – throw fancy new smart energy and cloud-based connections into the deal. GM says the extended range Cadillac ELR will be "Smart Grid ready" as its technology, combined with OnStar's connectivity, can communicate between the car and electric grid to save energy.

Trying to do its part to enhance both the smart grid and public safety, Mitsubishi announced last week it will support a smart grid demo project at the University of Southern California (USC) and its Viterbi School of Engineering. Mitsubishi will provide USC with 12 all-electric i vehicles to be used on campus and around the LA basin.

What will the perfect, sustainable home of the future will look like? At a minimum, new green construction projects will make greater use of recycled materials and higher levels of insulation. The next step is adding solar panels and installing EV charging ports so commuters can drive green. Researchers in Austin, Texas imagined their ideal home of the future and engaged with the community to build an entire green neighborhood. Welcome to Pecan Street.

BMW and Boulder, CO-based energy management company Tendril will build a demonstration home designed to power BMW's ActiveE electric vehicle while minimizing the home and the car's carbon footprint, the New York Times reported.

If you're going to drive from your home to somewhere you've never been before, it pays to have a map. And, if you're going to turn a region from a place where electric vehicles are a niche market and electrical power comes from a few large plants into one where EVs are the rule and power is far more dispersed, it also pays to have a document that lays out the course. In other words, a map.

At the Plug-In 2011 Conference in Raleigh, NC today, General Motors announced it is going to get into the real-world smart grid game with a new pilot program. The test will involve a number of Chevy Volts and GM's OnStar service. 27 Volts are headed to local utilities and GM says that "hundreds of employees" at these regional utilities will drive leased Volts during the trial, which starts later this year.

Modernizing the U.S.' antiquated electrical grid is a task that will likely take decades to complete, but at least we're off to a good start with more than five million smart meters installed nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Modernizing the U.S. electrical grid is a task that will most likely take decades to complete. At least we're getting started now, with more than two million smart meters installed nationwide, according to the

Right now, plug-in vehicles can operate just fine using standard outlets and infrastructure. Sure, they like higher voltage outlets to charge in less time, but if you can charge your cell phone you can – somehow, maybe with a little effort – charge your car. The big promise of plug-in vehicles, though, is how they will interact with the coming smart grid to lower prices and make the grid a more stable thing. Well, that is, if said smart grid ever arrives.

As the deft stroke of a finger from a black-hatted hacker's hand depressed a key, the lights dimmed and electric apparati cease operating in 68 percent of homes connected to America's smart grid. Washing machines stopped washing and cars stopped charging as the attack continued to issue forth for over 24 hours from deep within the bowels of a malcontent's lair. Lucky for us the assault was a smart meter worm simulation and the destructive hand belonged to Mike Davis of IOActive. This time.

Automakers are working with various electric utilities around the world to figure out how to best integrate vehicle with the grid. One of the requireents for the coming flood of plug-in cars is a way to smarten up the cars' energy use. A research team at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed a Smart Charger Controller that could eliminate the need for automakers to develop proprietary charging controllers in electric vehicles, whether BEVs or PHEVs.

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